Call centers and telecareRequirements for ICT tools for operators

Babak.Farshchian@sintef.no

Telecare: Why now?

• Increasing amount of elderly now due to after-WWII baby boomer generation.

• Increasing costs of healthcare systems due to changing demographics and chronic diseases.

• Institutionalization costs a lot of money!

• …and, most elderly prefer to live independently.

The feeling of safety at home

• Telecare works best when people feel safe at home.

• Safety is a subjective feeling.

• The role of care staff.

• The role of technology.

Ambulance service

Emergency Clinic(EC)

Safety Patrol(SP)

Home care (HC)

Informal caregivers

(IC)

Increased urgency/Reduced response time

healthsafetycare

How we take care of our elderly

Helsevakta(Health watch)

Primary care Specialist care

Hospital

Increasing use of technology at home

Call centers: What are they?

• Service access points for many companies.

• One of a large and growing set of channels to communicate with clients.

• Can be inbound and outbound.

Efficiency and Taylorism

• Increase number of clients per call handler.

• Decrease number of minutes per call.

• Standardized routines for handling calls.

• Combined with automation, robots.

• Being a call center operator is not a walk in the park.

Call centers and telecare in Trondheim

How are call centers for telecare different than conventional call centers?Research Question

Case study: Working with Helsevakta

• Plans to build a new call center for telecare and telemedicine in Trondheim.

• Merging of two departments, "Emergency clinics" and "Safety patrols".

• How will the ICT tools for operators look like?

• Interviews.

• Observations.

• Co-design sessions.

• Post-project data analysis.

User interface designs

Triage sequence

User interface designs

Sensors at home

User interface designs

Fleet management

User interface designs

Mobile device concepts

Low-fidelity prototypes

Triage tool

Post-project analysis

• Interesting case because it compares:• A conventional healthcare call center Emergency clinic.

• A new type of telecare call center Safety patrols.

Post-project analysis

Emergency clinics Safety patrols

Don't know the caller. Know the caller quite well.

Help in emergency life-saving situation. Help with day-to-day activities of living independently.

Help with emerging episodes of dangeroussituations.

Help with continuous development/co-production of care and daily living.

Send me help now. Make me feel safe always.

Don't care about technology at home. Know a lot about technology at home, and operate these.

Need support for triage tasks. Need support for caregiving tasks.

Need support for coordination with other units. Need support for coordination with other units, and leading this coordination.

ICT tools for operators in telecare call centers

• Proactivity: Don't wait for elderly to call. Many elderly who need help will never call.

• Continuity: Continuously build knowledge about each caller. Use this knowledge to provide a feeling of safety.

• Closer integration with homecare: Physical care needs to be integrated with "watching over."

• Technical control room: Need to think about how the growing number of technological devices will be operated remotely.

• Command and control: Integrate with tools to allow efficient coordination with other units.

Thanks for your attention!And question time.

www.sintef.no/sit